Mama Can't Buy You Love: The Official ILM Track-By-Track ELTON JOHN 1978-1988 Listening Thread

"I Guess That's Why They Call It the Blues"

www.youtube.com/watch?v=h6KYAVn8ons‎

http://www.the80sman.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/03/elton_john_i_guess_thats_why_they_call_it_the_blues_1-e1330968332280.jpg

THE BIG ONE

My favorite EJ song. He's right: the melody is such that he can play it as fast or as slow as he wants, in any arrangement he wants. I love his controlled dread -- falling in love is dangerous. Dig where the stresses fall ("Just stare into SPACE/Picture my FAAACCE/In your HANDS").

your favorite, eh? I took a while: 11-yr-old me, though vaguely scandalized by the "rolling like thunder under the covers" line, resented it for taking up space on the chart from the Fixx and Duran Duran, but time schooled me. The melody's as sturdy as an iron bridge & his singing is amazing (as you said, those wonderful stresses!: another run's the way he drags out "cryy in the niiight if it heeelps" and then compresses "but more than ever" as a quick aside). Or the way he backs into establishing the key, not reaching "home" until he hits "forever" in the verse.

as a kid "rolling like thunder under the covers" amazed me! Sex in an EJ song!

i'm suprised to find this having become my fave EJ song over the decades. Wonderfully un-oblique Bernie lyric, in striking contrast to his work from a decade earlier. "While i'm away, dust out the demons inside, and it won't be long/before you and me run, to the place in our hearts, where we hide". Just gorgeous. Like the melody, the easy, loping rhythm, the cleanly-produced mix of piano, guitar, drums, backing vocals, and Stevie's harmonica. A deserved classic.

"Crystal"

http://youtu.be/blgffkzRWIM

http://www.stickboydaily.com/images/2013/09/Elton-John-11.jpg

col! Another Buckingham-esque strummer! Imagine "Ball and Chain" and "Too Low for Zero" mating.

i like this one it's got a vague Electroclash vibe. also sounds a bit like Phoenix.

catching up on "Crystal"--yeah, this another thing where he's tributing Buckingham but also giving LB pointers on where to go next. good one (this whole album's ace so far)

now for Single #3:

"Kiss the Bride"

http://youtu.be/qbDAp0lKolc

http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_HvCNHaaadrI/S7uJQFpXxoI/AAAAAAAAJlo/DRtIZMdLwYQ/s1600/eltonjohn16.jpg

this is crummier-sounding than I remember. Thud-thwacking drummer sounds like the 15-yr-old kid who practices in his garage in my neighborhood

Nah, say it: his worst single since "Chloe." The knockkneed rhythm, hamhanded transition from bridge to chorus -- it mirrors the shrill insistence on his heterosexuality. Fortunately, "Wrap Her Up" is worse, but we'll get to it soon.

hamhanded transition from bridge to chorus

yeah,that's a dreadful bit. sounds like a man frantically blowing up an air mattress. & I do recall this thing being used over all the TV clips from EJ's ill-fated marriage.

sounds like a man frantically trying to get a woman to blow him

double pack singles didn't last long did they? they were part of that 80s multi-format crap to blag into the charts i'm guessing.

"Whipping Boy"

www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZsnnNRTb6Fg‎

http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_RL4UuEhnH1Y/R5mJinTR9QI/AAAAAAAAAc0/Qbfa6ENcqkw/s1600-h/Elton%2BJohn%2B%26%2BRenate.jpg

http://www4.pictures.gi.zimbio.com/Renate+Blauel+Singer+Elton+John+Turns+60+PAmZhoPfG6Rx.jpg

fucking hell that outfit

Crap drumming from "Kiss the Bride" gets an extension. Just second-rate stuff, from the sub-T. Rex guitar hooks to EJ's hoarse-sounding vocal to a Taupin lyric that seems written on an airport lounge napkin. EJ tries to salvage the song with a manic-sounding bridge. Worried Too Low's going into a nosedive it won't recover from.

The guitars recycle "I'm Still Standing," the melody "Crocodile Rock."

He recorded no perfect albums (maybe Honky Chateau?), so I don't mind rocking filler

iirc Marcello made a good argument that if you axe the songs between "Grey Seal" & "Your Sister Can't Dance" on Goodbye Yellow Brick Rd, you've got a pretty flawless album

that's a lot of nixing to get to your flawless album.

also, wait, is he nixing "all the girls love alice"???

yeah, guess so! (i wouldn't agree: "Seen this Movie Too" is also a keeper for me. But "jamaica jerk off" is so rancid a song that it derails the LP's flow and it takes a while to get back into it

"Saint"

http://youtu.be/3ngLTUHp-XE

http://i1.ytimg.com/vi/L05ZBxN9frA/0.jpg

the opening synths brought up Fox "suite" memories, so when it up-shifted to a thudding power-ballad chorus, I wasn't sure if it was an improvement. Feels like there's a better song in here somewhere---it's diffuse & overlong

now see this is my pick for TLFZ's worst.

"One More Arrow"

http://youtu.be/EOWUXppac2I

http://www.montrealgazette.com/entertainment/cms/binary/5813216.jpg?size=620x400s

a weepie (and arguably a gay song to counter the desperately-hetero "Kiss the Bride"), w/ EJ singing in a falsetto that's almost out of his vocal range.

Don't think Too Low quite recovered from the body blow that was "Kiss the Bride"---2nd side is a bit flabby---but the run of "Cold as Christmas" to "Crystal" would make a hell of an EP. Curious to see if Elton continues the streak with the next one (but there's like 22 B-sides to get through first)

on "One More Arrow" he's trying to remember something he's forgotten, which could only have come after "Kiss the Bride."

Zero B-side binge:

"I Guess Why they Call it the Blues" B-side:

"Choc Ice Goes Mental": http://youtu.be/V_88MyTrw_o

US single had "the Retreat," which we covered already, right?

"I'm Still Standing" B-side:

"Earn While You Learn": http://youtu.be/bP87fmu8_o0

"Kiss the Bride" b-side:

"Dreamboat": http://youtu.be/aqs4qfBJC6I

the reason there's no notorious Elton bootlegs or "lost songs" is that he seems to have put out everything he made in the studio at some point. "Dreamboat" hails from A Single Man

"Earn While You Learn," which is not bad, is an Elton maxim that Taupin never followed.

Insane -- I can't find a studio version of "Restless"! Yet fans have uploaded 620 live versions; he performed it a lot during this period, I guess.

anyway this sounds closest to the album version

"Restless"

http://youtu.be/52DgMEINazc

http://static.musictoday.com/store/bands/1940/product_medium/MUDD181.JPG

I can hear coke beginning to take its toll on his vocal. The enthusiasm substitutes for a blustery arrangement. Still, a better "Kiss the Bride."

yeah, studio version is v. close to that link. Agree his voice is starting to show some signs of wear, but the song's capable enough to fill the "Elderberry Wine"/"Saturday Night's All Right" slot on the album. With Geffen realizing Elton was the only one of his big signings to actually keep getting hits, there's pressure for a quick follow-up, so EJ, Chris Thomas and the rest grind out Breaking Hearts in a couple of weeks. I'm curious how ragged it sounds now.

Listened on Spotify to the album version. Vocal suits the song, I think. He seems to be going for a Stones vibe here.

"Slow Down Georgie" also looks impossible to find. Breaking Hearts: grievously un-YouTubed

"Who Wears These Shoes?"

http://youtu.be/PFonOVlhBWI

http://www.rock-shot.com/action/John-Elton_1984_1.jpg

Second single. More sexist drivel, and he still sounds hoarse, but the hook isn't bad. I don't remember hearing this at the time.

I do remember this one: it got some minor airplay. the guitar hook's okay but the chorus starts to become punishing around the 3-minute mark. Video is a horror (first Elton toupee appearance?)

The voice problems might be the polyps he eventually removed in '86.

Not even as good as Into the Old Man's Shoes, which I always get this one confused with. Best Elton shoe fetish song is probably Eight Hundred Dollar Shoes.

(Slow Down Georgie didn't do much for me either. Things do improve shortly though.)

"Breaking Hearts (Ain't What It Used to Be)"

http://youtu.be/4KjrgeiJlcM

http://s1.jrnl.ie/media/2012/05/PA-79880241.jpg

Always liked this one: it sounds like a refugee from Elton John sequenced after "Who Wears These Shoes." The self-pitying roue lyric works, EJ's push into falsetto in the chorus a nice touch. The lack of a bridge or solo or something to break up the run of verses/choruses does give it an overpacked feel---the song needs a bit more room to breathe.

why wasn't this tune a single instead of "Passengers"?

"Li'l Frigerator

http://youtu.be/YYt9q9F5YZo

http://cbswcbsfm.files.wordpress.com/2011/08/elton-john.jpg?w=594

or: Elton's "She's So Cold."

here's to Elton for making a halfway-listenable chorus out of Taupin's "lil' 'frigerator..get away from my soul!" points off for ersatz Chuck Berry solo and central casting '80s saxophone

I don't mind it. B-side material though.